For years, apartment and condominium buildings have modeled everything from their common areas to resident services after hotels, believing that if a building’s ambiance can convince someone to rent a room for a night, it can also persuade them to sign a lease or a sale contract.

But residential buildings aren’t the only properties drawing inspiration from the hospitality sector. As demand for non-traditional workspaces continues to grow, a number of shared office providers are modeling their centers after hotels in an effort to stay competitive in an increasingly crowded market. That means refreshing their look on a regular basis – typically every five to seven years – and treating tenants more like “guests” than paying customers.

Specific areas where this overlap is evident include:

• Design: Like hotels, many shared office centers have a front desk/lobby area where visitors are greeted by a member of the management team. This initial point of contact is just as important in an office setting as in a hotel because it shapes people’s initial impressions of the space, whether it be a prospective tenant wondering if a shared office is right for their business, or a client of an existing tenant that comes to the center for an on-site meeting. Beyond the front desk, individual corridors resemble those of a typical hotel, with each tenant having their own assigned office. This gives tenants the same mix of public and private space that they would find in a hotel or resort.

• Services: One of the biggest differentiators between a shared office center and a traditional office is the highly trained, full-service staff dedicated to serving flexible office tenants. It’s also another example of the overlap between shared offices and hotels. Similar to a concierge, shared office providers assist clients with everything from move-in coordination and technology setup to lunch arrangements. They also provide more traditional services like phone answering and mail handling, adding to their affordability and convenience, especially for small business owners who might otherwise have to hire a receptionist. Whereas coworking spaces that rent workstations by the day or hour could be compared to a limited-service hotel, offering few, if any, of these additional services, shared office centers more closely resemble the staffing of a luxury hotel.

• Amenities: In the hospitality sector, it’s all about the latest and greatest amenities. And while shared office centers may not offer pools and spas (not yet anyway), other amenities like fitness centers, gaming rooms and coffee bars are becoming must-haves for businesses that have a growing number of office providers to choose from. Of course, lounges, kitchens, meeting rooms and other, more standard hotel amenities are also available in the majority of shared office centers, further demonstrating the overlap between the two sectors.

In some cases, shared office centers and hotels directly compete with each other. If a business traveler is staying in a hotel room, for example, he or she may be more inclined to use the business facilities they’re already paying for than renting a workstation in a shared office environment. This makes it all the more important for shared office providers to stay abreast of the competition – both inside and outside their industry – as they continue to carve out their niche in the market.